Mexico Adventure
I haven't been able to fly this week, so I'll relate a past flight. I was with my dad a few years ago in Mexico and we were making a 3 hour flight from Oaxaca, which is in the dry mountains a few hundred miles south of Mexico City to a remote village called Palenque, on the Yucatan Peninsula. Our route took us over some very high terrain, and this morning we found ourselves climbing above a cloud layer and unable to see the ground. The layer kept getting higher as we headed toward the mountains, and soon we were up to 12000 feet and still climbing. We had no oxygen on board and there are rules in the US about using oxygen above 12500 feet. Eventually we were above 14000 feet and the air was pretty thin. We estimated the terrain below to be about 10000 feet and the clouds kept getting higher. We decided to try dropping through a hole in the clouds, not going below 11000 feet. We were lucky and we broke out below the clouds with a good view of the mountain peaks in front of us, just below the clouds. As we passed just a few hundred feet over the highest peaks, I could see dense forest and human settlement, but no roads at all. I'm pretty sure I saw monkeys in the trees. After crossing the mountains, we dropped into a lush valley, not far from the Guatamalan border. The ancient city of Palenque is a Mayan archeological site with a small airstrip nearby. The strip was surrounded by jungle, and I kid you not, there were a couple of wrecked planes on the side of the runway, just pushed aside and rotting away.